New York State (NYS) launched the Excelsior Scholarship in 2017. It is designed to make college tuition-free for students who attend publicly funded institutions and meet certain criteria. Is this scholarship a good investment for taxpayers of NYS? How long does it take taxpayers to recover their investment? This case analysis takes a perspective of a typical SUNY student who otherwise would not attend college, uses the Excelsior scholarship, graduates in four or five years and stays in NYS after graduation. Payback period for taxpayers is analyzed through a discounted cash flow methodology for such a case. Uncertainty is accommodated by testing sensitivity of the payback period to a range of values around each assumption. The focus of this study is limited to quantifiable economic benefits. Under common assumptions, it takes between five and nine years for taxpayers to recover the investment. It is shown that majority of the pecuniary benefits of Excelsior program accrue to the federal government, not New York State. This analysis re-emphasizes the benefit of in-time graduation for all parties concerned.